I was watching the Fox2 Morning Show as I woke up this morning. (Don’t ask me why.  I just was.)  They were discussing the governor’s “plan for the prisons”.  Yeah, I know, it’s kind of an oxymoron, but we’ll goo with it.

On comes one Daniel Vasquez, a former warden at San Quentin.  He spoke quite frankly on the need to review a) 3 Strikes and b) the sentencing guidelines.  He pointed out that we simply have too many non-violent offenders in prison.

I’ve argued in the past that we must address both of these issues.  Ultimately we cannot just lock everybody up and throw away the key.  It’s just not feasible.  We are already well on our way to locking up a full percent of Californians.  Right now we’re at about .6% and growing.  Pretty ridiculous.

We need to look for alternatives.  Prop 36 was a good start, but we are still thinking too small.  The prison system needs an overhaul on a more grand level.  We need to ensure that the people who emerge from the prisons will be productive citizens not hardened criminals.  We can’t have nonviolent offenders learning to be more violent in prison.  It’s just not helping us.

So, in the coming weeks, we will be having a discussion on a state level about what to do about our prisons.  It’s time to challenge our lawmakers to think big and work to design a new system that will actually be a rehabilitation system, not just an incarceration system.